Never sail with Carnival

You've probably caught my excited posts about the Happy Herbivore Cruise... I was supposed to go on a wonderful 7-day vacation with close to 100 HH fans aboard Carnival Liberty.

Many months ago I contacted every cruise liner to see if they would accomodate a large vegan group. Carnival not only promised to accomodate -- but said they were happy to and arranged a really great group package for us.

After everyone booked (some 60 cabins) Carnival drops the bomb on me last week that they will NOT accomodate our groups special dietary needs. They will only offer us vegetarian meals, not vegan.

I tried to speak with everyone I could. I spent days crying, yelling, emailing, racking up absurd phone charges trying to work something out. I even offered to work with the dining team to adapt their set vegetarian menus...

...and they refused.

I cancelled the group this morning and made sure to let them know that I'd make this public... I explained while I generally try not to abuse the "powers of the Internet"; I'm gladly making an exception to let my blog readers, twitter followers and Facebook fans know. Sure that may only be 10....15,000 people, but they are my friends in veggies, and this would obviously be relevant information for them.

If you were going on the cruise, please call and cancel your reservations by 1/24/11 to get a 100% FULL REFUND. Be sure to tell them WHY you are canceling.

I am so sorry and disappointed -- I can't begin to convey it in words. I have been crying and sick over it for days... hoping for a resolution. In the end, I'm glad that I found this out now, rather than my group was on the ship or someone else was duped.